**** religion
although discussing religion is inadvisable, I'll offer a bit:
Religion, as I see it, is a result of consciousness, self awareness and man's inability to cope with it. An animal will ignore its reflection when we would stop, look and then go onto facebook to complain about it (as I do).
Being painfully self aware also leads us into all sorts of troubles as how often at 3.46am have you been unable to sleep?Letting your mind wander and then being unable to cope with it all scream to yourself 'why are we here? Whats it all about?'.
As an ancient, you look up at the night sky and see pictures of animals and people so you populate it with gods to satisfy your own desire to presume that you know how and why. That dogma gets handed down, generation after generation so when the truth is found out - you know what happens next - some idiot blows themselves up in the name of those made up gods to take out as many non-believers as possible including himself.
Now, as there is no afterlife (steady now) you simply cease to exist - my theory is as that the universe is infinite, you will always have existed at some point in the infinite so there will always be a you, just at your point of view. You wont 'die' and pass into oblivion, you will simply go back to where you started, back in the womb as a couple of cells, back in the middle of the infinite...
Now, back to religion - 'how did this all happen?' why only us? Why not other planets and boggly eyed things from outer space - I dunno, I just ride a bicycle in the middle of the infinite...